Fault Line Read online

  “You have plans with me over winter break. These guys will have to find their fun somewhere else,” I said, clenching my hands.

  She slithered toward me and wrapped her arms around my neck. I tried not to flinch as the guys smirked at her ridiculous display.

  I grabbed her wrist and pulled her away from the guys.

  “This is it? This is what we are? This is what you are?” I asked once we had moved away from our audience.

  She blinked her eyes. They didn’t seem to be focusing very well. Was she high? That too? Although maybe it would be better if she was, then I wouldn’t have to feel like I brought about the deadness.

  “You’re not supposed to judge me,” she said.

  “And you’re not supposed to act like a whore,” I retorted. She reeled back and I banged my fist into the locker beside me. God, everything sucked.

  I inhaled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” I pulled her closer but her body didn’t react. Her clothes were obnoxiously skimpy for winter.

  “You wouldn’t let me break up with you,” she said in a flat voice.

  “And I still won’t. But this shit is ridiculous. What do you hope to accomplish with all this?”

  “I make the choice about what I want to do with my body,” she said, and her chin tilted up slightly. It was actually a relief to see defiance in her eyes after so much void.

  “That’s right. You do. But is this really what you want? Is this what I deserve?” I held her face and looked into her eyes, searching. Her pupils darted around, refusing to engage with me. I tapped her cheek to get her to focus.

  “What does it matter what I want or what you deserve? This is who I am,” she said, and pulled away from me. She turned her back and said, “I’ll be around. My mom is teaching a winter-break art camp. Come over if you want. Or don’t.” Her head finally swiveled and her emotionless face met mine. “I’m at your disposal.”

  •••

  Kevin showed up at my house after swim practice. I’d been expecting him to have a talk with me ever since Ani jumped him at Watson’s party, but he had waited. I couldn’t tell if it was because he felt bad or because he didn’t want to add to my stress over her.

  “You’re in a shit spiral with Ani, dude,” he said as soon as I opened my door.

  “No kidding.”

  “I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this, but I didn’t think you’d want to be a chump any longer. She’s screwing around with other guys. Not just flirting. Screwing around with them for real.”

  I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths like I tried to do before swim races. They didn’t work. I wanted to rip someone’s head off. I turned on Kevin, but the look of pity in his face made me punch the door instead. My mom called from the kitchen to see what the racket was about. I told her it was fine and pushed Kevin outside to the garage. Boxes were stacked neatly against one of the walls, and the bikes Michael and I never rode were anchored on hooks from the ceiling.

  “She wants to break up with me,” I told him. I brushed away a cobweb that stuck to my arm when I leaned against the wall.

  “Then let her, dude. She’s making you look bad.”

  “I can’t leave her after everything that’s happened. I don’t play that way,” I said.

  “Did you even hear me? She’s screwing around with other guys. You got to get out of this.” He looked like he wanted to smack me upside the head.

  “I heard what you said, but you don’t understand. I fricking let her go to that party on her own. She never would’ve done any of that shit if I were there. This is on me. It’s my job to take care of her.”

  “Yeah, I’d get that if you were married to her, maybe. But she’s your girlfriend. You’re eighteen. You aren’t responsible for her,” he retorted.

  “She’s still Ani,” I said.

  “She’s a messed-up version of Ani. That’s not the girl who told you your hair made you look like an asshole. It’s time to cut her loose.”

  I kicked a box and turned on him. “No. I’m not walking away from her. That’s a total dick move. She’s screwed up because a bunch of guys messed with her and left a lighter inside of her. She doesn’t deserve for me to bail on her.”

  Kevin raised his hands. “Okay, peace. Don’t shoot the messenger. I understand, but listen, I’m not the only one saying you should get out of this. I mean, I get that messed-up shit happened at that party, but what the hell? How many guys are you going to let on that train?”

  I fisted my hands. “How many guys are on it right now?”

  I’d had my head up my ass. I suspected shit was going down with other guys, but I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to fucking share her and I hated that the guys who raped her got her too. But my anger just made everything she’d accused me of even more true. I couldn’t stand what we were becoming, but I couldn’t be the guy to walk away. For me or for Ani.

  Kevin shook his head. “I don’t know. I heard some of the lacrosse guys saying something about her in a janitor’s closet. I didn’t hear too much, but they referred to her as the hot lacrosse train whore.”

  Heat poured through me. Firecrotch. Manhole. Cum Dumpster. Train whore. The words pounded in my head like a sledgehammer.

  “Son of a bitch. What am I supposed to do?”

  “I think you should talk to her mom,” Kevin said.

  I’d considered it. Every day. More than once. Gayle was like a friend and I knew she’d probably be more help to Ani than I’d been. But every time I thought of doing it, I imagined the betrayal Ani would feel. She’d told me over and over how she didn’t want her mom involved. How her mom would only make things worse. And it didn’t really feel like my secret to tell.

  “I can’t do that, dude. I’ll lose Ani for good.”

  Kevin shook his head. “You’ve lost her already. This shit is bigger than you. You gotta talk to someone. You’re not gonna fix her or make her better. And honestly, dude, who do you think you are to even try?”

  “Her goddamn boyfriend,” I said, seething.

  “Which makes you what? Her fricking shrink? She’s out of control. She’s not going to let you rein that shit in. It’s not how she works.”

  I took a step back and pressed my head against the garage wall. “I know. You’re right. That counselor Beth told me she was re-empowering herself or whatever by making her own choices about her body. I keep trying to remember that. I don’t want to take that away from her even though it means she’s crapping on everything we have.”

  “Well,” Kevin said, and put his hand on my shoulder, “you should probably call Beth again. Because this isn’t empowering; this is bullshit. The only thing she’s doing is living up to her reputation as the Manhole.”

  22

  I couldn’t find Beth’s cell phone number, so I called the number for her organization that I found on the website.

  “Oh,” the woman on the phone said, “Beth’s one of our ER volunteers. She doesn’t work here. Is there someone else I can put you on the phone with? Or can I transfer you to our crisis hotline?”

  “She doesn’t work for you?” What the hell?

  “Well, she does, but as a volunteer. Most of our ER advocates are volunteers. If you’d like, I can let her know you called.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Yeah.” Beth wasn’t even a real crisis counselor. She was a volunteer. God. No wonder she sounded like she was reading off a script. She wasn’t even really qualified to help me. My stomach bottomed out.

  •••

  “You’re a volunteer?” I said as soon as Beth called me that night. “Why did you act like you work for that rape organization?”

  “Because I do. I take hospital ER shifts once or twice a month.” No apology. Just matter-of-fact.

  “That’s bullshit. You acted like you had some experience. Like you knew what you were doi
ng. Like you could actually help me.”

  “I can help you. I’ve been trained as a volunteer. It was a really extensive training. They don’t just slot us in ERs and tell us good luck.”

  It felt like coils of rope were being twisted around my body tighter and tighter until I couldn’t move. I had no one to talk to who knew anything about what happened. No one but Beth.

  “How long have you been volunteering?”

  “Six months,” she answered, and I felt the invisible ropes squeeze again.

  “What do you do regularly? Like when you’re not volunteering.”

  “I’m in school to get my social work degree.”

  She was a student. Probably not that much older than me and Ani. I released a breath. Desperation plucked along my skin. I knew I should hang up. But the fear of being left utterly alone with Ani’s problems was too much.

  “Ani’s messed up,” I finally told her. Part of me knew it was worthless. She couldn’t help. Probably wasn’t even supposed to be talking to me.

  “Well, that’s not surprising, but what do you mean by messed up?” she answered calmly. “What’s going on?” She had her official counselor voice on and I almost hung up again, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of talking to a random, probably equally unqualified “volunteer” on the rape crisis hotline.

  “She’s messing around with other guys.” I waited for Beth to respond, but she didn’t say anything. Were all counselors like this? Did volunteer training include the art of nontalking? All the long pauses and awkward silences were annoying. “She tried to break up with me.”

  “And?” she prompted.

  “I wouldn’t let her. But she’s messing around with other guys. I don’t know what to do.”

  “It sounds like you’re not comfortable with that,” she said.

  “Yeah, no shit. Of course I’m not comfortable with it. She’s my girlfriend.”

  “Did you ask her why she was doing it?” Her voice was so mellow, I wanted to put my hand through the phone and squeeze her throat. Didn’t she understand what I was saying?

  “She said it was her choice what she wanted to do with her body,” I answered through clenched teeth.

  “And it is. But it sounds like there’s more going on with this. You know, promiscuity is a very common reaction in cases of rape.”

  “Again with the common reactions to rape? Is everything a common reaction to rape? If I told you she stopped bathing and wore the same clothes every day, would that be a common reaction?”

  “Sometimes. Why? Is that happening?”

  “No, but she is messing around with other guys.”

  “And that is a common reaction to rape,” Beth said again.

  “So?” I didn’t feel better. I didn’t give a shit if it was a common reaction. My girlfriend was hooking up with other guys.

  She took a deep breath. “So sometimes blatant sexuality is a form of self-destructiveness. And sometimes girls and women get their identity wrapped up in the rape and don’t see themselves as anything beyond a vessel for men’s sexual needs.”

  “Oh, come on, Beth. A vessel for men’s sexual needs? Give me a frickin’ break.”

  Beth released a sigh. “Okay, let’s just talk about Ani. Tell me, Ben, have you noticed a difference in her intimacy with you?”

  “What do you mean?” I walked the length of my bedroom floor, scraping my feet along the carpet. Plush, ridiculous white carpet.

  “Is she engaged? Is sex mutually beneficial? Is she looking to have her own needs met in the same way she had previously or is she focused on your needs exclusively?”

  “In English, please.”

  “When you’re together, do you make her feel good or does she make it all about you?”

  Crap. Crap. My mind pulled at memories of the last few times we’d had sex. She seemed so into it at first, I hadn’t really thought about it. But I hadn’t gone down on her since the rape. She’d given me head a couple of times, but whenever I offered to reciprocate, she’d brushed me off. I figured she just wanted to get right to things. But after the last time, when she faked it, I didn’t know how to read her.

  “We haven’t had sex in a while.”

  “Okay. Well, was that her decision?”

  Fuck. “No. It’s just that the last time, I realized she wasn’t totally into it.”

  Silence.

  “I—I didn’t rape her,” I stuttered. “It wasn’t like that. I just got the feeling she wasn’t really with me, you know?”

  “So you haven’t been trying to connect with her in that way?”

  “No,” I said at last, mentally cursing myself for being a selfish asshole. “She hasn’t been engaged or whatever. She faked it the last time. Maybe the last few times. I don’t know.”

  “Did you talk to her about it afterward?” she asked, and I winced at the sympathy in her voice. I didn’t deserve it.

  “Not really. I’ve tried to talk to her a bunch, but she doesn’t want to get into it with me.”

  “Have you seen her with other guys? Or could it maybe just be rumors?”

  I exhaled and stopped pacing my room to sit on my bed. “I heard it from a pretty reliable source.”

  “Listen, this is just my opinion, but I think when girls get angry, they turn it in on themselves. Guys tend to fight other people, girls feel bad about their emotions and punish themselves for it. Maybe that’s what Ani is doing.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Well.” She released a sigh. “I don’t know for sure since I haven’t spoken to her, but I suspect Ani feels responsible in part for what happened. Whether it was from the drinking or possible date rape drugs, she feels like she put herself in the situation to be raped. So instead of dealing with these feelings of shame and doubt, she’s becoming self-destructive. Doing something to numb the feelings. For her, it’s sex. For some survivors, it’s cutting or bulimia.”

  “This all sounds like it comes out of a ‘very special episode’ of some crappy TV show. Seriously. Are you reading from a book? This is Ani. She’s not some poster girl for the damaging effects of irresponsible drinking or how rape can change your life. She’s Ani. My Ani.”

  “Do you think she might talk to one of the counselors here?” she asked after several more seconds of silence passed. I wished she would. I was in way over my head.

  “Probably not.”

  “I’ll try calling her. Remind her that she can contact the hotline twenty-four hours a day. Have you decided what you want to do?”

  I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything. I had hoped a conversation with Beth might help me figure things out, but now, I didn’t even know if she knew what she was talking about. Or if she was just faking it like me. Saying what she was supposed to say because that’s what they told her in some training.

  I was confused and basically alone. Ani didn’t deserve for me to bail on her, but how much was I going to have to take?

  “Stick with her, I guess,” I answered. “If she’s with me, maybe she’ll tone it all down, get back to herself. I’ll try to do that stuff you said. Serve her needs or whatever.” I never thought I’d be having this conversation. It was horrifying and humiliating all at once.

  “Yes, if you decide to be intimate with her again, try to engage her,” Beth said, clicking back into counselorspeak. “Make sure she sees herself as someone you want to be with as a whole person, not just this part of her.”

  Yeah, that’d be easy. Was I supposed to pull that off before or after she hooked up with the lacrosse team in the janitor’s closet?

  “Ben,” Beth continued, “you know we have support groups for family and friends of survivors. We call it Healing Allies. The times for the groups are on the organization’s website if you’re interested.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know about that, but thanks
anyway.”

  I hung up and went online to read more about rape trauma syndrome. There were so many different kinds of sexual assault and so many different reactions to it that my head wanted to explode. I found myself in one of those survivor forums online and got in a chat with a seventeen-year-old girl who’d been sexually abused by her babysitter for years. She told me the best thing to do for Ani was support her and encourage her to talk to someone.

  I checked out times for Healing Allies but didn’t think I could go. I imagined myself sitting with a bunch of parents and husbands of rape victims, and I couldn’t see me saying anything or telling Ani’s story.

  The whole thing was stupid. I wasn’t a support group guy. Most of the girls in the forums probably thought I was some stalker. Maybe they hadn’t even been raped and were just on there for attention or because they were bored. Resentment made me worthless as a boyfriend, and I couldn’t figure out enough to make any kind of definitive move beyond trying to do what Beth said.

  I went over to Ani’s after I got off the computer. I tried to talk to her without mentioning the lacrosse thing. I didn’t think I’d be able to even look at her if she tried to explain it. I wasn’t even sure I could get hard thinking about other guys’ dicks in her. Which made me feel like an even bigger prick.

  Ani wouldn’t talk about anything anyway; she kept kissing my neck and moving my hands to her boobs.

  “Ani, cut it out,” I finally said.

  “What?” She pouted. “I just want to be with you. It’s been a long time since we’ve been alone together. Don’t you want me anymore?”

  I took a deep breath and remembered Beth’s words. “Of course I do.” I rubbed my hands over her shoulders. “When’s your mom going to be home?”

  She smiled, but it didn’t quite make it to her whole face. “Late. She’s preparing for her art class, getting supplies, and setting up the room. We have another two hours, at least.”

  “Okay, take your clothes off.”

  Her face didn’t react. She just shoved her clothes onto the floor like she was getting changed for work or something. I tried not to cringe. She tugged at my shirt, but I pushed her away.